** The term black in this context is strictly in the context
of Black African American. I use it because it is a term that to most has
encompassed the Black African American identity and experience, even in
countries where the majority of people are racially Black.
Showing up Black in Palestine is not as bad as showing up
Black with no American citizenship or American passport. We were met with
soldiers, guns, dogs, and an extended wait. Our friend who is Muslim was told right
before the borders closed that she could not get in, realizing religion
outweighed her privilege of having an American passport and citizenship. A
Black woman, a Latinx woman, and a Muslim woman showed up to the border, I felt
like we knew that one of us was definitely not going to get let in.
I showed up Black in Palestine three years ago. I showed up
Black in the Oceti Sekowin Camp in North Dakota this past year. As I continue
to show up Black for many other communities outside of my own, these two
experiences have been the center of me questioning what are the practices of
intersectional solidarity. Why do we need intersectional solidarity? For me
this lies at the intersect of understanding our individual and collective
relationship to land, water, and spirit.
What if we started with understanding our relationship to
the land that we are resisting on? What
if we started with understanding the entities that have broken our connection
to the elements of land, water, and spirituality? As a Black cisgender temporarily
able bodied queer femme with an American citizenship and passport, I not only must show up but all I know is to show up for other oppressed
people. All of my placed identities intersect in my experience as an activist,
educator, healer, and protector, yet many times I am questioned why do I show
up Black for other oppressed people. The heart of that question is why do I
show up for others when the problems within the Black community are not solved.
Also, why show up for communities who some believe have not shown up for us.
The historical systemic violence of this divide and conquer tactic is at the
root of why these statements are problematic. It also strips away the reality
that we as Black people are not monolithic and our bodies and issues are globally
interconnected. There are black people in Palestine. There are black indigenous
people all over the world. Yet, I continue to question what does it mean to
show up Black? What has been my experience showing up Black? And how and why
showing up Black woman makes a difference? I do not have answers only personal
experiences.
I show up Black because my body exemplifies a history of
knowing, feeling, breathing what it means to fight for movement. Physical
movement. When I think about what I am resisting for many times I think about
space. What are the physical spaces in which we can move in? What is the
proximity of space I can occupy now and what is the proximity of space I need
to feel free? What are the conditions of my space? What does it feel, smell,
look, and if need be, taste like? Privilege is being able to have space to
think, reflect, and be alone with self. If it was up to me the inability of
such space should be a human rights violation. The conditions of Palestine and
Standing Rock are just that, human rights violations.
To think about our collective relationship to land, we must
remember how they destroyed our connections to the earth. African Americans – being
forcibly removed from our land, literally detaching ourselves from the earth to
work another piece of land that is not ours. Migrants – being forced to flea
their land due to direct imperialism on their land. Having borders created on
their land to not be able to move freely. Indigenous peoples – having their
land stolen from them over and over again. And the list continues. Our
relationship to the land is where I begin to think about why I show up Black. I
showed up Black for Palestine because I feel the connection of being forced to
leave a land that is rightfully yours. We understand what warfare means –
chemical, guns, pollution, etc. We understand borders. We understand the
inability to move freely. I carry this in my body even though right now I am
presenting myself as privileged because I can move “freely”. Passport privilege
is real.
I went to Palestine to bear witness. To bear witness of the
destruction. To bear witness to all that I have heard but never saw. To bear
witness to the struggle. I envision me looking at the olive trees as I sit on
the mountain. Looking at what the imperialistic colonial forces destroyed. I
also looked at what was growing. I went to Palestine because I didn’t believe
it. People couldn’t possibly be in such violence and surviving. I have not
figured out how to testify to all that I have witnessed but this is my start.
I went to Palestine because I am Black. I went to Palestine
because I am woman and I believe the earth is a collective of indigenous women.
I went to Palestine because my ancestors told me to. I went to Palestine
because Palestine told me to come.
I never planned on any of this. I never planned to be a part
of such history. To bear witness to what is happening is Palestine is to be a
part of history because I must testify; of the checkpoints, of the cages, of
the guns, the dogs, of my body. My body literally never felt that way. I had a
scorching headache the whole time. I was afraid the whole time. It felt like a
dream and nightmare the whole time.
I remember me and Florcy got there early in the morning because we were
stupid/ naive and got an Airbnb in an occupied territory. But even that…the house, the
desperate need for attention; of him being in such a mental state of luring us
in. It was either that he was so mad at us as Americans coming in that it was a
trap or that he literally had no contact with anyone else outside of his home
that his social awkwardness became scary. Either way it was violent. Again, the
proximity of space as a reason for resisting is relevant.
I remember being told that water is rationed. I remember
being told not to use up so much water. I remember being told that they turn
off the water as a tactic of war. For me water is where the intersections have
lived.
I went to Palestine and then three years later I went to
Standing Rock where again the universe guided me. I did not plan for this. I
was there to witness community. I was there to witness what community could be.
There was drama. There were things that we needed to be figured out. They had
the roots of all systemic problems in that camp. But at camp community was
forming. There were healing medicines that were so accessible that I was in awe
of how accessible healing was to me. I was in awe by just how communal food
accessibility was to me. I was in awe by just how accessible education was. The
type of education were children laughed and played in the dirt and understood
why they were there. There was a type of communal atmosphere that made me
realize that this is how the revolution must start.
We must have a local practice for global problems. Local
meaning indigenous centered.
Protecting the water of one community protects the water of
many. Water flows. We flow. We are made of water. Our thinking, tactics, and
connections must be intersectional. Which is why Standing Rock and Palestine
and placing my body in both show what intersectional solidarity looks like. I
showed up for the same reasons.
Solidarity looks like being guided by love. Solidarity looks
like being guided by the water, by the moon, by the sun, by the earth, by the
crystals. Solidarity looks like water. Because water flows. Water flows, water
flows, water flows, and we must continuously be growing in a process. It’s not
just one thing, but it is cleansing, it is healing, it is moving, it is
nurturing, it is surviving and we need water to survive. Solidarity is water. So
as black and as woman, who embodies a history of birthing from water, I went to
Palestine. As black and as woman I went to Standing Rock.
Anti-blackness is everywhere, yet I still show up for those
whose identities are outside of mine. I show up because I believe our
intervention lies at the intersections of all struggles, which is the ghosts
and present forms of colonialism(s) that have found itself in our mind, body,
and spirit, allowing us to separate rather than collaborate. I show up because
I understand the intersections of our relationship to the elements of the
universe – land, water, and energy.
We need a Spiritual Activist Movement throughout the world!
Bearing witness to the Standing Rock resistance, truly for me reflected the
start of such a movement. I called it a prayer movement, dedicated to a
Womanist methodology that brought together the “triad of concerns”: Human -
Human Relationships, Human -Nature Relationships, and Human - Spiritual
Relationships (Maparyan, 2012). We should pause, and as we always should have
been doing, learn from our indigenous people. Spiritual Activism is about
manipulating energy for positive social and ecological change (Maparyan, 2012).
Think about what power we hold simply by learning how to manipulate our energy.
We are magical.
My connection to these elements has been my commitment to
showing up Black in solidarity. Solidarity must start with a deep interrogation
with our relationship to the universe – which is spiritual.
“Quality should not change based on human beings”. Who gets
to decide the quality of freedom? If that person or group of people died could
the quality of freedom change? We know it is more complex than that, systematic
oppression is real. But what if it was as simple as person or group of people? As
we were in a car driving back to Ramallah we were stop by a solider with a dog.
It was then that a friend said “a dog’s life is more valuable than mine”.
I was reminded that I am fighting so that
true human quality cannot be changed based on human beings.
